Bashara sentenced to 80 to 240 months in prison for trying to have handyman killed

Bob Bashara pleaded guilty in October for trying to arrange the killing of Joe Gentz

Posted: 2:49 PM, December 18, 2014Updated: 2:49 PM, December 18, 2014

DETROIT - Through tears, Bob Bashara on Monday said he was "truly and humbly sorry" for hiring a hit man to kill the man who is the suspect in his wife's slaying.

"What I did was inexcusable. I have no one to blame but myself," the Grosse Pointe Park man told the court. "But I understand fully what I did was a crime and something that I will regret for the rest of my life."

The Grosse Pointe Park man pleaded guilty in October. He had asked for some lenience from the judge so he could take care of his mother in her senior years, which he said was a promise he had made to his grandfather.

Wayne County Judge Bruce Morrow sentenced him Monday to a minimum of 80 months in prison and a maximum of 20 years. The state parole board will determine when to release him.

Bashara said he tried to arrange the killing of his handyman, Joe Gentz, who has been in jail since March when he was charged with strangling Jane Bashara. Robert Bashara was doomed when his scheme was secretly recorded by a business associate.

"I can't begin to tell you how ashamed I am of what I did," Bashara said. "Pleading guilty was something I knew I had to do."

--Joe Gentz

Gentz's attorney, Susan Reed, read a statement on her client's behalf before the sentencing.

In the statement, Gentz says he has been telling the truth the beginning but was threatened and painted in a bad light by Bashara.

Grosse Pointe Park mother found dead in January

Jane Bashara was found dead in the back of her SUV in a Detroit alley on Jan. 25. She had been reported missing the night before.

Sources say Gentz was forced to kill the Grosse Pointe Park mother under the order of her husband. Bob Bashara insists he had no role in her death, but police have called him a person of interest. He is not charged in connection with her death.

Gentz is charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.